Red Dead Reflection
by Anastasoula
Summary: (Naruto is a girl, and everything is the same. Except her genetic makeup.) Naruto has made a good life for herself and her comrades after all that's happened, but in the end, it's a lonely existence. She passes her hat to someone (way, way) younger, and decides she's going to try to be happy for once. It matters little what kind of butterflies she steps on to get there.


(Naruto is a girl, and everything is the same. Except her genetic makeup.) Naruto has made a good life for herself and her comrades after all that's happened, but in the end, it's a lonely existence. She passes her hat to someone (way, way) younger, and decides she's going to try to be happy for once. It matters little what kind of butterflies she steps on to get there.

* * *

An ancient-looking woman with red hair like a river stares over a city glowing in the light of a dying sunset. She sits, honestly relaxed, atop the spikiest head of hair of one of the many faces carved into the cliff. Despite her old age, there is evidence of power in the way she elegantly sits herself and the hardness in her gaze. This is her village, something no one would dispute.

Konoha had changed so much. It was her home, her legacy, but she couldn't stay. There were too many ghosts living in the shadows, and in her memories. The Uzumaki lifeforce had seen to that. She felt selfish, somehow, for what she was going to do, what she had done. But she had promised Kurama she would let herself be happy for once. And if this was the only other way to do it than death, she would not go back on her word.

But let there be no mistake, she would not sacrifice herself ever again for the sake of this place. She had done it once, that was enough.

And so she rises to stand, slowly, as if burdened by the immense weight of herself and her thoughts. A millisecond flicker of red, and she is somewhere else far away. The densely packed sealing scriptures are painted over a floor of artificially hardened sand. Candles are methodologically lit in a mathematically circular formation, and their chakra flames do not flicker. The woman lies in the middle of all this, spread eagled and bare of any dirt or clothing. Her hair surrounds her head in a bloody and protective halo. She places her hands palm down beside her, across chakra ley lines, and a godly amount of chakra bursts forth. It waits like a tamed tiger, ready to obey its master. The woman stares up at the deep blue desert sky, breathes in deep, then out. She lets her chakra free.

Then there is nothing.

* * *

It's a bitter morning of a homecoming. The air is cool and slightly humid, like a usual Fire country spring, and the sun makes halos over homes. Academy children, day-shift ninja winding up, night-shift ninja winding down, and shopkeepers are the only ones out of the house at this hour, besides stray cats, dogs, and chirping birds. Near the edge of town, various early morning ninjas and genin make their way out of both cheap and high-end apartment buildings and boarding houses to start their day. On a particularly scraggy looking building, a girl with long red hair and a youthful face sits sipping a mug of hot tea atop the roof. She is either dismissed or ignored by those observant enough to spot her. She stares at the distant faces carved in rock, and snorts at the barely visible marks of paint defaming it.

An alarm clock goes off loud enough for her to hear outside the apartment she's sitting on.

"Hmm, that time already?" she murmurs, and despite its unenthusiastic wording, there is a certain anticipation deep within her gut that she only felt on battlefields long past, and on lonely nights in bars when her roaming eyes would make meaningful contact with another's. In other words, it was a long, long time ago.

It is team placements.

* * *

She sits next to Shino (the chibi) this time. She fears that if she sits anywhere near the Uchiha she will get trampled (again) by all the lovesick little girls (she ignores the possibility that just maybe she doesn't want to see his face any more than she needs to). She turns, and greets his slightly tense and wary form at her willingness to sit by him. She is Naruto, after all, and she has had (and will have) many victims. Sometimes of her pranks.

"Good morning, Shino." she chimes smoothly, voice slightly husky. Shino inclines his head toward her, amiably, but keeps his shaded eyes subtly on her hands. She smiles slightly, honestly amused.

"Good morning. Why are you here? Why am I asking? You failed the graduating exam." there is no bite to his words, which is something Naruto has had a newfound appreciation for, he is honestly curious, and slightly suspicious. Naruto starts, pulls down the green goggles from her forehead, then reaches into a hip pouch and digs around.

"Oh! I completely forgot… this! I must be going senile or something." she pulls out a slightly scuffed up hitai-ate with a flourish, and says the words with a hidden sarcasm. She pauses, and ponders something. "Where should I put it? I'm thinking my left bicep or maybe a thigh…" Shino is both surprised and impressed by her uncharacteristic subdued attitude.

If Shino were anyone else, he would have asked where she stole it, not recognizing the specific scratches and marks of their sensei's protector. Instead he said, "Is that not Iruka-sensei's?" Naruto ties the blue cloth tight around her forehead, hands experienced in the movement.

"Oh, well, yeah. He gave it to me." she didn't elaborate, but for a reason Shino could not explain, he was inclined to believe her. Their exchange is brought to a halt when the sensei mentioned walks into the room commandingly. The entire class stands up, (including Naruto, to Iruka's moderate surprise and approval) and says the usual respectful, "Good morning, Iruka-sensei" for the last time, then sits down as he steps before the class.

"Good morning, my students, now genin. As new ninja of Konohagakure no Sato there are some words I must say before you divide into your teams and we part ways as comrades…"

* * *

"Eurgh! Where IS he?!" Naruto took care to shout it right into the teme's ear, earning her a glare and a "shut up, dobe". "Iruka-sensei has already gone home, and ours is the only one late!" Naruto thought she had been used to it, but waiting for three hours quietly tracing complex sealing scriptures on a desk with her finger, seallessly sending clones out to set traps around her apartment, do the dishes, make her bed, water her plant, buy essential goods and new clothing with the rest of her non-boarding orphan stipend, and just generally terrorize anew the civilian and ninja population to rile them up to new heights of refreshing hatred wasn't that fun. Except maybe the terrorize part.

"Eheheh…" Naruto giggled girlishly at that, then remembered something, and grinned like a maniac.

"Naruto, you idiot! What are you doing?" Sakura couldn't take it any more, Naruto had been complaining for the better part of the three hours, and Sakura felt like taking it out on her. And now she was placing a thin tripwire across the classroom door, leading to…

"Naruto, where did you get all of those erasers?" There was a truly unholy amount of chalked up erasers, probably from every other class in the entire academy. Sakura felt a little envious of the setup Naruto was creating with the wire, it accounted for the fact that their sensei might not even step into the room by placing it outside in the hall, and had a system for launching them all from a point behind the teacher's desk at the place where their sensei's face would be, all while using a few dropped pencils, some rocks, scraps of ripped notebook, and two paper clips (and some chakra). Maybe Naruto wouldn't be completely useless with traps at least?

"Oh, well, you know, hoarding," now all they had to do was wait. It looked suitably complicated and hidden enough that maybe they would be able to trick their sensei! That would be hilarious!

Only for their (soaked?) sensei to use the window.

"My impression of you is… I hate you," here, he fixed a suitably murderous gaze at Naruto.

"You're looking a little wet… sensei," Sakura felt a little nervous, and that grin wasn't even being directed at her. "It's be a shame if something were to…" and the erasers launched. And not even from behind the desk, but from even outside the window, in even direction.

"... happen." Sasuke just thought it was impossible not to be completely disgusted as he looked at the form of the lightly powdered Hatake Kakashi.

"Meet me up on the roof."

* * *

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like Ichiraku ramen, my hair, and bathing in the blood of my enemies! I dislike people who hate others for no real reason, those who underestimate me, and Sasuke-teme! My hobbies are training, taking care of my houseplants, and cultivating and creating extremely rare and deadly poisons! My dream…" and here she lost all bravado. Her gaze hardened as she stared at their sensei, and for the first time in her physical life, she looked like a soldier. "…is to be happy and live a full life for once, without being a human sacrifice." Both Sakura and Sasuke didn't know what she meant by that, but Kakashi looked at her with an unreadable expression. Naruto liked to think it was both respect and pity. Maybe it wasn't.

"Okay, next," the moment was lost.

* * *

Arriving back at her apartment in a rush, she doesn't even bother to use her cute dog-shaped key to unlock the door, just jabs her finger across the lock to unlock it with her chakra (a chakra manipulation and control exercise used in her typically savvy Naruto way). As the door closes, she kicks her sandals off and she slides down the door to sit on the newly clean floor curled tightly into a ball. She feels too exposed with the faded chakra signatures of both the old (but she supposed, now younger than her) man and a twenty-something year old Kakashi-sensei. It is a little too much. She has to relax somewhere. Forcibly untensing her muscles and closing her eyes, she fades back into her mind like embracing an old friend.

Like a blink, she opens her eyes to a well-lit and large colorfully tiled hallway with little flowers, mosses, fruit laden trees, and grasses springing up through the cracks. There are no walls or ceilings, just crystal clear windows open to let in both cool and warm breeze, the soft scent of desert lily and sakura, and a radiant golden lighting from a blue sun moving from the north. The sky is both and neither sunrise or sunset, and violet clouds stir lightly in turmoil, casting shadows over long hallways, antechambers, and rooms of various use. Gleaming golden pipes neatly line the corners of the ceiling, and a light humming vibration of power fills the air. She finds a particularly shrunken pipe, and follows it. Her steps are silent, and there is no leakage from the pipes onto the floor. There hasn't been for more than a century.

As she gets closer to where she know the crabby bijuu will be, her steps take on a clicking quality, and she notices with slight alarm a sparkling reflective spring water emanating from a carved steel doorway. The water's bright golden reflection makes her eyes burn, and so she turns her gaze toward the steel door, stepping before it. Little vibrations from inside make the water ripple. She takes a hold of the door, and casually pushes its (heavy) double doors open.

"Hello, Kurama."

"You brat! What have you done to my container! And…" the fox roars fiercely behind intricate and deceptively delicate-looking gates. She notes that despite these mindscape changes, there is still that fake paper seal stuck to it, and she wonders suddenly, what would her father and mother think of her now? "**How do you know my name?**" he growls this lowly, and is drawn to his full and impressive height. He leans forward and stares into her eyes with those bloody fireballs of his own. It hurts her a little, but she knows she must show no weakness.

"Settle down," she states authoritatively, despite her comparatively puny size and physical age. Gleaming silver chains the size of Forest of Death Hashirama tree trunks burst from the floor, and whip their ends promisingly at the fox. He growls. A single fine silver chain comes sliding out of the base of her spine and elongates, coming straight up, and starts forming a dense and intricate picture. As it curls into various seals and shapes like a snake, she speaks.

"I am still Naruto, just not the one you know. Yet." he squints at the half-circle picture her chain is making, and then stares at her.

"I see," he sees less than he admits, but he is calmer now. Little waves splash against her uncovered feet and windows, creating ripple-light patterns across them both and the artistically tiled floor underneath. The water stills shines a little too brightly. She kicks her foot at the water.

"Not used to it after so long… I need to fix this," she mutters. Her hovering chain doesn't even twitch as she turns and walks away to find the smallish pipe giving her the trouble. Kurama watches as she uses practiced hands to pull a jar of ink and a sealing brush out of nowhere and paints a few quick strokes for "expand" on the pipe, with various other little marks. With a quick swipe of her chakra-laden finger, the pipe suddenly gets minisculely larger. The water drains quickly between the cracks of the tiled floor, despite the plants.

"Ah, the water was kinda nice, but you can't have excess chakra leaking just anywhere, ya know?" she says brightly, smiling up at him with genuine friendliness. He thinks, what have I done to the brat in the future? before she turns away with a wave and a goodbye, the silver chain both pulling back into her spine and drifting after her. The gigantic chains of chakra sink into the floor, as if they weren't there. Just as she reaches the door, she turns back toward him.

"Oh, and… just so you know, kyuubi, you will get your revenge, but only with my help. I won't let any Sharingan get to you now, or ever. You've been with me for longer than you realize. I hope you will allow me to use your true name someday." she smiles, then walks off, not closing the heavy steel doors behind her. A cloud breaks away from the sun above, bathing the room in an ethereal light. For much of his life, he realizes, he has never truly seen the sky. Then something catches his eye about the tiled floor.

It is both him and her as a much older woman, staring at each other across a sunny field. The normal sun is high, and he can almost feel the light breeze that must be there. The sky is blue, and they are both smiling. There is no cage.

That half-shown chain seal she made, he realizes finally, is truly time travel.

* * *

A/N:

If you're wondering about the "husky" voice part, didn't Naruto find out the worst secret of his life the day before placements? I mean, the becoming a genin part might negate any crying, but still.

Sooo yes, this is a thing that is happening. This chapter hasn't been planned at all. I just started writing the first bit, liked how it turned out, and am going to go along with it. This weird kind of third person omniscient/present tense perspective kind of thing is also happening for some reason. I might try first person later, but it feels a little awkward to me. What would ya'll prefer? This is also turning out to be a bit more of a crack story than I originally intended… Maybe I just want Naruto to unnerve everyone with her grin. Also, should I skip the wave arc? It's still going to take place, I just don't want to write it because it'll take forever. Maybe I should write just a little… and make "bathing in the blood of my enemies" and "cultivating deudly poisons" more literal...

Okay, I better address two things now: Naruto is a female, yes, and the canon story is completely the same. Including any romantic feelings, except the genetics. I'm thinking the face (and smile) of Minato, body structure mix of both, and the hair color of Kushina/hair style of Minato that is really, really long. (Gotta love obnoxiously long and spiky red hair.) Pale skin or tan skin? Whatever you prefer to imagine, but I'm leaning toward tan. Also, Chakra Chains! (Written with awesome guitar riff in mind.)

And pairings. I'm not adverse to it, but I'm reluctant. I mean, Naruto's like a really old lady, so it's more than weird to have her mack on kids incredibly younger than her (and adults. not to mention she knew all the people and their children and their partners in the future? I mean, it's like they'd be having an affair or something). I've got, like, three hints (maybe too obvious) for whom I'm leaning toward in this chapter, and I'll give you another: it's het, and not Sasuke. But that could change! The heterosexual part, I mean. You can guess or request stuff, I guess. Please no currently dead people though. I'm not fond of pulling rabbits out of hats on this kind of stuff. Kurama is open for business though. ;p

Happy Independence Day to you Americans, Happy Canada Day to you Canadians, and an empathetic apology to you other people out of those categories. We're really annoying in early July (and every other day), I know.

If there are any really cool and patient willing betas available, hit me up! (You should also know I've never done this beta thing before, soo, yeah, patience.) Also any other questions any readers have can be done in review form! Longer discussions, rants, or flames in PM form, please.

"Lightly powdered Hatake Kakashi." is the take-home phrase of the day.


End file.
